You may have heard about the foundation’s work to reduce inequities in global health and education, help vulnerable families and children in the Pacific Northwest, and close the "digital divide" by making the Internet and information technology available through public libraries. But how we go about that work is a mystery to many people.

Realizing this, we’re in the early stages of plans to add a visitor learning center to our new headquarters. The center would be open to the public as a place to discover more about the foundation's mission and the work we do.

We’ve chosen to work with a world-class exhibit design firm with a solid reputation for bringing important issues to light. Ralph Applebaum Associates has worked on many renowned projects, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Global Library exhibit at the New York Public Library.

We don’t have an official name for it yet, but we hope that the visitor learning center will be a project that the city of Seattle and our neighbors will take pride in. Most of all, we hope it will shine the spotlight on the work of people here in the Northwest and around the world who are making a difference every day. We’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Back to Top

In the last 20 years, the design community has started a movement to reduce the negative environmental impacts of development. Although this movement has many names – "green," "high performance," "sustainable," "regenerative" – "sustainable design" is the most common.

A sustainable design approach considers the site, the building, and the people holistically over time and can include many different elements. It will certainly address energy efficiency and will probably use "green" materials, which may be recycled or harvested from renewable resources. It may include watershed conservation or support biodiversity. It likely will focus on aspects of human health and comfort, such as daylight, fresh air, and non-toxic materials.

What is LEED?

Many products and companies claim to be “green,” but people may wonder how these claims can be verified. A similar problem exists in evaluating buildings. Is a building "green" if it conserves energy? Collects rainwater? Uses recycled building materials? Does any one of these alone qualify a building as “green”? To address this issue, the United States Green Building Council has created a benchmarking system that rates “green” buildings.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) rating system requires a project to qualify in several important areas (for example, site, water, energy, materials and human environment) to achieve certification. Projects can be rated Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

As a voluntary certification program, LEED has grown quickly since its inception in the late 1990s. There are now more than 2,070 projects registered and seeking certification across the United States. Nationwide, there are approximately 290 certified projects, more than 20 of which are in the Seattle area. In the year 2000, the city of Seattle adopted LEED Silver certification as a guideline for city projects with more than 5,000 square feet.

Sustainability and the 500 Fifth Avenue North Project

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its development partners agreed early on that building sustainably was important. The team will follow the city’s guideline by designing a LEED Silver-rated project. At the same time, the team recognizes that there might be additional sustainability benefits not covered by LEED. In that case, an idea that is good for the project, the neighborhood, and the bioregion, but that doesn’t get particular credit in LEED, still would be considered.

Sustainable design principles also played an important part in site selection for the project. This new location for the foundation’s headquarters increases opportunities for employees and visitors to use public transportation, reduces pressure for suburban growth, uses existing roads and utilities, and strengthens an existing urban neighborhood.

The Seattle Center 5th Avenue North Garage (also to be built on the site) will consolidate most of the parking underground, to allow for urban development on the rest of the site. The designers also have envisioned a green roof for the garage and are studying the best ways to use rainfall and develop landscapes throughout the site to help improve the local ecosystem.

Sustainability also is a factor in the early design stage, as we consider how the campus buildings should be arranged and oriented on the site to take advantage of sun and wind exposures. For example, the campus buildings likely will be much narrower than many office buildings in Seattle to improve access to daylight for building occupants . Other areas of sustainable practices include construction jobsite recycling and building maintenance practices.

Back to Top

Sustainable landscape design considers the specific environmental conditions of a site and capitalizes on those elements to help the landscape thrive while requiring as few additional resources as possible.

In the Pacific Northwest, a sustainable landscape needs to include plants that can survive in our moderate climate with minimal care during the dry season and also take advantage of available resources (such as abundant water during the rainy season).

Native plants

Using native plants is one approach to sustainable landscape design, since the plants are genetically adapted to the local environment; but urban conditions are not always favorable to some native plants.

Still, urban landscape designers may choose certain native plants as a part of a design scheme to provide bird-friendly habitats and other features that add biodiversity to the site and work within an urban setting.

Sustainable landscaping on the new campus

The landscape designers for the new foundation campus intend to use proven methods for reducing energy and resource demands: capturing rainwater, landscaping portions of the campus with drought-tolerant plants, and reducing the "heat island effect" by planting large areas of trees, open green spaces, and a green roof over the parking garage.

The landscape designers also are paying close attention to the natural systems that exist on the site and in the surrounding neighborhood. For example, there is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a “green” connection between two other new developments that will provide bird habitat: South Lake Union Park and the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park on Elliott Bay.

Back to Top

The tree work on the east side of Fifth Avenue North, between Harrison and Republican streets has been completed. The work was part of a plan to minimize construction impact on the health of the trees when excavation for the new parking garage begins in November.

Forester Bill Ames, an ISA Certified Arborist called the tree work project "the most proactive approach to tree protection/preservation in the city I’ve ever seen with new development."

Back to Top